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Flipper (1996 film)
Flipper is a 1996 adventure film directed by Alan Shapiro. The film was produced by The Bubble Factory and distributed by Universal Pictures, and is a remake of the 1963 film of the same name. It was released on May 17, 1996. Plot Sandy Ricks is sent to stay with his Uncle Porter for the summer in Coral Key, Florida. This has a negative impression on Sandy, as he was hoping to go to a Red Hot Chilli Peppers concert with his friends. He is also unimpressed by the way Porter lives, eating mostly spaghettios and spending his life mostly on his boat. While doing the latter, they meet Porter's enemy Dirk Moran, a big game fisherman who makes known his hatred of sea animals when he starts shooting at a pod of dolphins swimming by his boat and stealing bait from his fishing passengers. One of the dolphins, later named Flipper, becomes separated from the pod and briefly interacts with Sandy, who purposefully directs Dirk in the wrong direction before shooing Flipper away. They return to shore and Sandy meets Kathy, a local shopkeeper who has a flirtatious relationship with Porter, and her shy son Marvin. Meanwhile, Flipper tries to survive on his own and has a brief encounter with Scar, a hammerhead shark that has been lurking in the island's waters, but manages to escape without harm. Sandy later reunites with Flipper and briefly plays with him before secretly sneaking off on a passenger boat out of Coral Key to the concert. Porter manages to catch up to him and bring him back just as a storm kicks up and begins causing destruction. They get into an argument over Sandy's attitude and lack of a father figure, suggesting that his parents are divorced. Sandy is doing chores when Flipper appears and knocks him into the water, leading to them swimming and playing together for the rest of the day, after which Sandy begins to open up and be more cheerful. Later on, he meets Kim, a girl his age, who shares his bond with Flipper. They decide to make money by hosting a show with Flipper as the star. Porter returns to find Sandy has been slacking his chores and closes the Flipper Show down before confiscating the money Sandy earned and decides to teach him a lesson in hoarding cash from others by having him drink beer and smoke cigars until he gets sick. Later, Sandy and Kim work introduce Flipper to Marvin, who begins to speak for the first time, much to Kathy's joy. She too becomes close with Flipper. The group soon run into Dirk at a café, and Sandy and Porter later see him and his men trying to trap Flipper in a net. Porter, having seen the bond between Sandy and the dolphin, confronts Dirk and cuts the net loose, infuriating Dirk. The group is soon met by the sheriff, who explains that they can't keep the dolphin unless he is in captivity, and Flipper is sent back into the wild on his own. That night, Sandy and Kim set out in a dinghy to look for Flipper. They fail to locate the dolphin, but see dumping of barrels off of Dirk's boat. The next morning, as Kim arrives looking for Sandy, Porter's pet brown pelican Pete comes running as if asking her to follow him. Pete leads Kim to Flipper, who lies beached and sick. Kathy makes a shake out of pieces of fish and feeds them to Flipper, who manages to recover. Kathy runs some tests and determines that Flipper was poisoned by toxic waste, which is also shown to have been ruining the local fishing. Sandy and Kim reveal what they saw the night before, but Dirk denies any knowledge of the dumpings. The group sets out to find the source of the dumpings after getting permission from the sheriff. They use Flipper's ability of echolocation and a special camera attached to his head to help them locate the barrels of toxic waste. Flipper also manages to locate the rest of his pod, but drops the camera in the process. Porter rushes back to alert the sheriff about the barrels after Kathy is unable to contact the coast guard (Dirk had secretly followed them and disabled their communications). Sandy, however, becomes concerned that something has happened to Flipper, he then sets off in the dinghy to find him without informing anyone except for Marvin. Sandy barely survives an encounter with Dirk's boat, which dismantles the dinghy. Kim learns of Sandy's absence from Marv and informs Porter. Sandy then notices a dorsal fin and thinks it is Flipper, as the latter loved pretending to be a shark. It is actually Scar, whose usual food supply has become dessimated by the toxic waste dumpings. The shark, seeking potential prey, chases Sandy as he swims for his life towards Dirk's boat. Just as Scar prepares to attack Sandy, Flipper, alerted by his friend's cries for help, arrives and begins nose-butting Scar in the gills. For a moment, Scar turns on and proves to be stronger than Flipper, but the rest of the dolphin pod come to Flipper's aid and successfully drive Scar away. Angered at his interference in the dumpings, Dirk is about to finish Sandy off with a blow to the head with a speargun when Flipper jumps up and knocks Dirk into the water. Porter arrives with the sheriff and pulls Sandy aboard. Dirk is arrested for illegally dumping toxic waste. The sheriff grants them permission to keep Flipper as a reward for his heroism, but Sandy instead convinces him to return to live with his pod. The next morning, Sandy's mom arrives to take him home and he says farewell to his friends. He also asks if he can come back next summer. Porter agrees to it, and then presents Kathy with a bouquet of flowers, much to her surprise and delight. On his way out, there's a commotion on the boat and Sandy finds to his happiness that Flipper and his pod have come to see him off. Cast * Paul Hogan as Porter Ricks * Elijah Wood as Elijah Wood * Jessica Wesson as Kim * Jonathan Banks as Dirk Moran * Bill Kelley as Donald * Chelsea Field as Kathy * Issac Hayes as Sheriff Russ * Jason Fuchs as Marvin Category:Films Category:Universal Pictures films Category:Children and family films Category:Adventure films Category:Remakes Category:Live-action films Category:PG-rated films Category:1990s films Category:1996 films